Welcome to Mechanical and Materials Engineering

Mechanical engineers can be found working in analysis, construction, consulting, design, development, maintenance, management, manufacturing, marketing, research and sales. The mechanical engineer’s knowledge and skills are needed in a remarkable range of industries: automotive and aerospace, energy and environmental, communication, materials and manufacturing, food and chemical processing, medical and biomechanical, resource industries, transportation, and others.

The Queen’s Mechanical Engineering curriculum provides a solid foundation in the basic engineering sciences of solid mechanics and dynamics, materials engineering, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and heat transfer. Building on this foundation are courses key to the discipline of mechanical engineering including machine design, manufacturing methods, and instrumentation and control. All students take a unique course in manufacturing machine shop practice. Our modern well equipped machine shop, complete with CAD (computer aided design) workstations and CNC (computer numerically controlled) machines, is used for prototype development. The upper year curriculum provides a choice of technical electives. Examples include computer aided design, design of biomechanical devices, advanced fluid dynamics, aerospace engineering, robotics, turbomachines, ergonomics and design, mechatronic systems design, advanced materials, and thermal systems design. The projects in the final year Capstone design course are industry sponsored. Students in all years are also encouraged to participate in a wide variety of extracurricular international design team competitions.

In addition to this broad base, the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering prides itself on being a leader in project based, team oriented and hands-on learning. After year two, a student can choose to remain in the general Mechanical Engineering Option (ME1) or select a more focused path in the Materials Option (ME2) or the Biomechanical Option (ME3) for the third and fourth year of their studies. All students that successfully complete the program will graduate with a highly respected Mechanical Engineering degree.

All through the program students learn to plan and manage their time and work. Students are given many opportunities to develop their written and verbal communication skills in proposals, reports and presentations. These are critical skills for professional engineers so they can communicate their ideas to their colleagues and peers.

In addition to professional engineering practice, a mechanical engineering degree can be a launching pad into a range of other careers which include business, law, medicine and academia.